Key events
Mark Butler is reportedly putting private health insurers on notice, that they will be forced to pay up to $1bn a year to private hospitals struggling to operate.
Host Sally Sara asks Ruston if the Coalition would consider doing the same.
Ruston calls it a “simplistic solution”:
I think is a very simplistic solution to what is a very, very complex problem. First of all, we need to know who is going to pay for the estimated billion dollar cost of the minister’s policy sort of comments, because we want to make sure that the 14 million Australians who have just recently been hit with above inflation premium hikes this week are not going to be the people that pay for this billion dollar commitment.
Shadow health minister Anne Ruston follows Gallagher on RN Breakfast, to respond to Labor’s announcement on mental health.
Ruston points out, as Dutton did earlier, that the medicare mental health centres are a rebranded version of ‘head to health’ centres that the previous Liberal governments established – though Labor has set up and funded more of them since coming into office.
Ruston says she welcomes the decision of Labor to “match” the opposition’s commitment to mental health, but has criticised them for committing to keeping the number of subsidised mental health sessions at 10 (which the opposition has promised to double).
The first thing they did when they came into government was to cut the number of Medicare subsidised mental health sessions in half, particularly for Australians with more complex and chronic mental health conditions that needed this support. Subsequently, we’ve seen their own department has given them a fail when it comes to the outcomes of that particular measure
You would not ration a medical service in any other situation in the health health sector.
Gallagher dons pink signs over Labor-red in Canberra
Wherever you are in Australia you might have noticed there are some pollies whose corflutes don’t exactly match the colour of the party they represent (or mention the party that they’re in).
It’s certainly not the first time we’ve seen it: back in 2022 we saw Liberal candidate (now senator) Dave Sharma run with posters missing the Liberal logo; this election we’ve seen cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek with posters and T-shirts donning the colour purple rather than red.
And Katy Gallagher has gone for pink – which host Sally Sara asks about. Gallagher takes a second to answer:
Thank you for noticing, I look, I just take… to be honest, people just tell me what the best way to put yourself out there is. But I don’t think anyone would not know that I am with the Labor party. I’ve been around for a while now, and certainly I’m very proud to be a member of the Labor party.
She has been part of the ACT Labor institution for a while, previously serving as the territory’s chief minister.
Gallagher reiterates Australia in a good position regarding Trump tariff chaos
There will be a lot of investors and superannuation holders who will be closely watching how the market continues to respond to Trumps tariffs.
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, says she imagines there will be some watching it with concern on RN Breakfast this morning. Yesterday she and Jim Chalmers released some modelling from the Treasury department, that showed Australia would be hit in a “modest” way, but it would be the US and China that would fact the biggest impacts to their GDP.
Gallagher reiterates the point that Australia is doing pretty ok.
I imagine people with investments [and] super will be looking at that with some level of concern. This is obviously a response to what’s been happening with the tariff decisions coming out of the US and the flow-on from that. But I would say, I think we are in a very good position here in Australia.
Asked whether the government is considering some sort of stimulus, or whether it might be up to the Reserve Bank to step in with some lower rate cuts, Gallagher says there’s already “a lot of investments” flowing into the economy. She, like Chalmers yesterday observed that the market is increasing its odds on more interest rate cuts this year (up to five), but of course she adds the age-old “I won’t predict or pre-empt what the RBA does”.
Kate Lyons
Angus Taylor defends Coalition policy U-turns on work from home and job cuts
Angus Taylor has conceded that a proposal to ban working from home for public servants was “the wrong policy” but has accused Labor of a “scare campaign” about whom that policy would affect.
“We have obviously said that we were wrong and we have said, we have apologised for them and we’ll go forward in a different direction,” Taylor told ABC 730 last night.
Dutton performed a spectacular policy backflip on the first day of the second week of the election campaign, walking back a promise to end work from home for public servants that sparked outrage among the public, and concerns that it might prompt the private sector to also demand employees return to full-time in-person office hours.
I will say, though, Sarah [Ferguson], that it was also a very misleading campaign from Labor that has not helped the situation because they were trying to claim that we were pursuing this across the entire economy. That was not the case and, sadly, that kind of misleading campaign, that scare campaign from Labor, we are seeing elsewhere and will continue to see.
Taylor refused to answer whether the decision to drop the unpopular policy came about after it became clear that many working mothers who value the flexibility of working from home may vote against the Coalition on this issue alone. But conceded that “workplaces need flexibility”.
Taylor also commented on the second Liberal backflip of the day – a walking back of a commitment to cut 40,000 public service jobs, with the Coalition now saying it would shrink the size of the public service by attrition, not through any forced redundancies.
We have seen a growth of 41,000 in the public service and we want to see a better public service, not a bigger public service.
Asked what counted as a “frontline position”, Taylor said: “If someone’s serving veterans for instance that’s a frontline position. If someone’s working in the military, that’s a frontline position.”
“Does that mean a worker can’t be doing a useful job if they’re not sitting in a booth or on the phone dealing directly with the public. That is the only threshold for a valuable job in the public service?” asked Ferguson.
Not at all, and we haven’t said that. What we have said is we need to get the public service to the size it was when we were last in government.
Dutton says additional subsidised mental health sessions will help ‘missing middle’ of patients
This morning Labor has promised $1bn for mental health services, including investing in more mental health workers and improving facilities.
It follows a $400m commitment for youth mental health and a promise to reinstate 20 subsidised mental health sessions. The Coalition promised those a fortnight ago during Peter Dutton’s budget reply.
Dutton tells News Breakfast that the promise to increase subsidised session from 10 to 20 would help the “missing middle” or people who have more complex needs, but not complex enough to receive care from a hospital.
When we talk about those additional 10 services, that means a young person is able to go to see their clinician on 10 more sessions, and that means that, at the clinician end, the business model is more successful for them. And that’s what the clinicians have asked for. They need more services to deal with complex matters.
There’s a rebranding, just to point out what is a fact here in relation to Labor’s announcement – the Coalition had set up 40 centres and the government has taken those and is rebranding them as part of this package.
Dutton continues to blame Labor for ‘twisting’ Coalition’s work from home policy
The woe for the Coalition over their work from home backflip isn’t over yet and Dutton is again challenged on the policy.
He tells News Breakfast he’s been clear he “supports work from home arrangements” and that the policy had just applied to public servants.
The walk-back strategy on the policy has been to apologise and blame Labor for “twisting” the policy out of context, to infer it would also relate to the private sector.
Dutton says he’s apologised and clarified the position, but points out that the prime minister has never apologised for his broken promise to cut electricity bills by $275.
Dutton says he doesn’t agree with Trump tariffs while walking back praise
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says his comments calling Donald Trump a “shrewd operator” and a man with “gravitas” was in relation to the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, while he doesn’t agree “at all” with Trump’s approach to tariffs.
Dutton has been tested since declaring he would have achieved a better deal with the Trump administration.
Asked on News Breakfast what he could have done this time, Dutton says the Labor government doesn’t have the “connection” with the current Trump administration that the previous Liberal government had with the first administration.
We [the Liberal government] had identified Joe Hockey’s work as ambassador was crucial in doing this – identifying people who could have an influence in the decision in and around the administration. That’s exactly what we did. This prime minister just hasn’t got any of that connection. There’s been no work done in the run-up to what was obviously being announced.
Dutton has said he would take a “carrot” over a “stick” approach to negotiations, offering more on the defence relationship with the US, which Labor has criticised, calling it a “dangerous way to go” by linking trade with defence.
NSW hospital doctors begin three-day strike
Natasha May
Doctors in NSW hospitals are striking for the first time this millennium, with today the first of three days of industrial action planned across the state’s hospitals.
The doctor’s union, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (Asmof), says the strike will not be putting patients at risk, but the state government say they have not been provided the details to be assured.
Asmof said the numbers striking have been limited based on discussions with senior staff within each hospitals’ departments to ensure safe staffing levels, which at a minimum will be the same level they are on public holidays, nights and weekends.
As a result, not all 5,000 doctors participating in the action will be walking off the job, some may also be taking other forms of action like bans on administrative duties.
The NSW minister for health, Ryan Park, says he is not assured patient safety can be maintained with this skeleton staff due to the higher demand for services during the daytime on weekdays.
Ian Lisser, Asmof NSW’s manager of industrial services, said the union will direct doctors to work if the plans appeared to leave departments with unsafe staffing levels.
The greatest number of staff who will be walking off the job will be in Sydney metropolitan hospitals – Royal Prince Alfred, St George, Westmead, Prince of Wales, Liverpool and Nepean, Lisser said.
Read more here:
Butler says many Australians will be ‘bracing for today’ amid market turmoil
Butler is also asked about Donald Trump (of course) and the damage he’s potentially doing to the Australian economy.
The tariffs have already had a huge impact on global markets, and including on Australians’ superannuation balances, so Butler says there will be a lot of people “bracing for today with a deep sense of trepidation” to see how the market goes.
Butler says the government “got a better deal than any other country” in response to Peter Dutton’s claim he could have achieved a better outcome.
We had meetings at very high levels and no country on the planet got a better deal. What we’re dealing with now is the global reverberations from that.
Labor has been pushing for Australian products to now turn to other markets and diversify in response.
Regions and outer suburbs to benefit from free mental health services, says minister
The health minister, Mark Butler, is out doing the media rounds this morning, to sell the $1bn mental health package the government is announcing this morning.
Josh Butler has the details for you below, which Butler tells ABC News Breakfast is to build free mental health services “where people need it”, particularly in the regions and outer suburbs.
We know that the teen years and early 20s are where most disorders emerge. Services that young people feel comfortable visiting is critically important.
Asked why so much of the funding is going to Headspace and whether they’ve been able to make a dent in stopping the deterioration of mental health in young people, Butler says Labor had evaluated the service and the results were “positive”.
Well, they were evaluated fairly early in our term of government and seen to be very positive … It’s a really important service that means young people know there’s somewhere they can feel comfortable going to.
Labor pledges $1bn for mental health
Josh Butler
Labor will commit $1bn to a major mental health policy, including upgrading or establishing dozens of Medicare, Headspace and youth mental health centres.
The government would also put $90m towards training some 1,200 mental health workers.
Anthony Albanese will on Tuesday pledge $500m for 20 youth specialist care centres, as well as $225m for 31 new and upgrades to Medicare mental health centres, and $200m to expanding or starting 58 Headspace centres.
The youth centres will be focused on addressing what is called “the missing middle”, or complex needs that can be addressed outside hospitals – such as personality disorders, eating disorders and early psychosis.
“We will deliver $1 billion to roll out more services and locations Australians can go for free, public mental health care backed by Medicare,” Albanese said in a statement.
Whether you need short-term support or ongoing care, young or old, we will ensure that a free, mental health service backed by Medicare will be there for you and your family.
The health minister, Mark Butler, said the competing Coalition policy of doubling the number of Medicare-backed mental health sessions would “create a bottleneck that means tens of thousands of Australians get no help at all” by “piling more demand on private psychologists”.
The announcement was welcomed by mental health experts including Mental Health Australia, Headspace and Patrick McGorry of Orygen. McGorry had joined Peter Dutton in Melbourne last week when the Liberal leader announced new funding for a Headspace centre in Melton. McGorry said:
Australians will be relieved and grateful that a re-elected Albanese government will respond decisively to the youth mental health crisis by strengthening Headspace, building a network of strong specialised youth mental health centres to support all primary care providers, and expanding a diverse and skilled mental health workforce.
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning,
Krishani Dhanji here with you, as we follow along on this election race.
Both leaders, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, are in Sydney this morning, ahead of the first leaders’ debate tonight on Sky News.
We’re health focused this morning, with Labor unveiling a $1bn mental health promise which we’ll dig into the details of shortly.
And Donald Trump has threatened even more tariffs on China (and just after the latest Treasury modelling was released yesterday afternoon), we’ll no doubt be seeing plenty of reaction to that as well.
So buckle up, it’s going to be a big one (and yes – I said this yesterday, but it was true)!
